KwaMashu Town Centre - Urban LandMark

stalled by staff resignations and delays inthe provincial land acquisition process.The time limit on mandate to sell hasexpired more than once. A key problem isthe lack of a champion within the SocialWelfare Department. There is a possibilitythat the national departments of HomeAffairs and Labour may build new officesin KwaMashu, but neither departmenthas made a clear decision.The development of Bridge City as a newregional node for the whole INK area,2km from KMTC, may reduce the ability ofthe KMTC project to attract governmentdepartments to the town centre.The danger is that there may be too manynodes, or that the lack of shared objectivesin respect of the delivery of governmentservices may mean that nodes competewith, instead of complementing, oneanother. The Bridge City project hasproposed the establishment of agovernment services mall.the former townships. The project teamconvinced the developer to investigatethe KMTC opportunity, supported by aclear picture brochure and data aboutdisposable income, thresholds andeconomic viability. The team and companyrepresentatives explored a number ofparcels of land owned by the municipality.However the developers were interested ina different area that included some landparcels not owned by the municipality.The team decided to support this initiativebecause they saw it as a catalyticdevelopment.A key challenge was related to landassembly – acquiring the parcels ofland necessary to make up the site thatthe developer wanted. The developersapproached the holders of the relevantdeeds of grant and negotiated to‘purchase’ the lease. There were difficultieswith locating owners and establishing aprice, including establishing the quantumof rates arrears on the property.But the leases were duly purchased.The municipality sold a piece of landrequired to complete the parcel by privatetreaty to support the development. 4At the time the land assembly processstarted, there was no town planningscheme to make developments of thiskind possible, and no private ownershipof land was possible. In 2003, the KMTCproject team launched an applicationunder the Development Facilitation Actto put in place a town planning layoutfor the town centre, together with zoningand development regulations, and thebasis of a new general plan and the saleof land with full freehold title. In 2005, theteam launched an application for anamendment to the zoning scheme thatwould allow the land assembled for theKwaMashu Shopping Centre to be used forthat purpose.KwaMashu Shopping CentreA scout working for a private-sectordevelopment company was looking foropportunities to establish a presence in4The Municipal Finance Management Act requires that municipal land be sold by tender, unlessthere are good reasons to deviate from this principle. In this case, the land could be sold by privateagreement because it is expensive to develop – it contains a stream and the underlying rocks are shale– and because it was in the public interest to facilitate the development of a major shopping centre.12 13